Friday, September 5, 2014

It's back to school season and if you are like me when I worked in the schools, you're stressing getting that schedule finalized and thinking about starting therapy soon. I've joined up with 9 other SLPs to help make your life a little easier!

We've joined forces to make it easy to get 10 FREEBIES for back to school, as well as some favorite items to get you started on the right foot.

To get started, head over to my Teachers pay Teachers store to download this product. Inside, you'll find all ten freebies, as well as our ten favorite products.

Once there, you can find all of the products by clicking on the pictures on each individual page. Here's my page!

In addition, my all time best seller is included at the end. If you haven't downloaded my "Idiom of the Week", be sure to check it out!

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Here's a little snip-it on the app straight from Little Bee Speech's website:

Articulation Test Center was created by certified speech-language pathologists as both an informal assessment and a measure to monitor progress in speech development. It was created to be used as a supplemental assessment in conjunction with standardized tests.

When you open the app, you come to this screen. There is an option for an age-based screener or a customizable full test. You can also view student scores from this main page by clicking the "Scores" button in the lower left hand corner.

I'll start with the full test. You can pick to test all options, which include initial, medial, and final sounds, initial blends, vowels, r sounds, and a speech sample. Or, you can pick and choose what you would like to test. After you hit the "Next" button, you will be asked to add in the name and birthday of the student you are testing.

If you do the complete full test, you get 59 real-life picture cards. What makes this app so unique (and totally awesome!) are the interactive sound tiles. You can see below that the "a" and "pp" are green. That means that those are the sounds being tested on that card. The actual sound that corresponds to the spelling of the word is printed below the green tile.

If you have your speech room set up like mine, you are often sitting across from the student you are testing. A fabulous feature of this app is the ability to flip the picture upside down so that it is facing a student sitting across from you. How cool is that!? I also like that you are able to record the student's production of the word and play it back.

Now, lets look at the awesome scoring capabilities. Let's say that the student says "abble" instead of "apple". If you click on the "pp" once, it turns red, indicating that the sound was incorrect. If you tap the sound tile again, it becomes yellow, indicating that the sound was an approximation of the target sound. If you mess up, just tap the tile again and it turns back to green. If the sound was deleted, just slide the tile towards the top of the screen and the tile disappears, indicating a deletion.

Back to my example: After you click that the sound was wrong, click on the arrow to the right of the word and a drop down menu like the one below appears. For my example, the student substituted a /b/ for the /p/ sound. Click and drag the "b" tile up to the "pp" tile and the tile will change to a red "b".

What makes this feature even better is that you can add phonological processes to the tile as well. You have three choices of pages:

If you aren't sure what a process means, simply click on the process and a definition and example are given. To choose the process, drag and place the process on the corresponding tile.

Here's what the page will look like with an errored sound and corresponding phonological process.

What I love most about this app is the ability to record a speech sample after you have completed the test. There are three interactive scenes to choose from: a mountain scene, beach scene, or park scene.

Once you choose a scene picture, the full scene will appear. Be sure to hit the "Record" button so that your student's speech sample is recorded for future analysis! You have the ability to swipe left and right to view more of the scene. Pictures in the scene contain key sounds that are present in the test.

If you are having trouble eliciting a sample from your student, just click on any item in the scene and a close-up picture will appear with a prompt.

When you are done with the speech sample, hit "Done". A screen will ask you to rate the speech sample as "Poor", "Fair", or "Good". You will then be brought to a screen that looks like this. Another informative feature of the app is accessible once you click on the bar indicated by the arrow in the picture below.

From there, you can view the words tested, errors marked, the speech sample, a sample report, and recommendations.In the words tested, you will see the target word, what you indicated the student said, what processes you marked while scoring, a recording of the student's production (if you hit the record button) and any additional notes you took about the student's production.

The "Errors Marked" screen shows the sound errors the student produced and when those sounds should be in that student's repertoire.

You can view substitutions of errors for sounds in all positions of words.

And, you can view the phonological processes present in the student's speech and what percent of errors involved a certain process.

If you click on the "Speech Sample" button, you have the ability to listen to the student's speech sample. From here, you can transcribe the speech sample and update the intelligibility rating of the speech sample.

The app also provides a written report. The report includes the sounds marked in error in each position that the student should have by his/her age, as well as ones that are considered developmentally appropriate based on age. Phonological processes are also reported in this manner. Recommendations are included for target sounds in therapy, as well as sounds that should be monitored as the student ages. You can also type in your own conclusions and recommendations. If you want, you have the option to print the report or email the report to yourself or a parent.

If you don't need to administer a full test or just want to see how the student produces sounds based on their age, you can choose to administer the screener. Pick the age range of the student. A blurb with the sounds included in that age range appears. Once ready, hit the "Next" button. From here, the screener progresses just like the full test with all the same wonderful features. The only thing you cannot do from the screener is collect a speech sample.

After you complete the screener, the results will appear like they did after completing the full test. From this screen, you are able to monitor a student's progress over time.

So, after showing you how the app works, I should probably tell you what I think about it!What I like:

I love, love, love the interactive sound tiles and how easy it is to indicate an incorrect sound, replace it with the sound the student used, and indicate the phonological process used.

Now I know what you're all thinking, I barely have time to give a test, let alone score it while I'm giving it or The two-year-old I'm testing won't sit still while I mark all of his errors and determine what processes he is using. Guess what- you're in luck! The developers of this app have allowed you to go back at a later time and edit the results. This means that you can record the student saying each word on the slide without doing anything with the tiles. Once the test is completed, click the "Edit Results" button in the top right and go back through the test and mark the student's errors at another time. Easy peasy and oh so handy!

The pictures are pictures of REAL items that are relevant and up-to-date. And since this is an app, if a picture ever becomes outdated or needs changed for any other reason, the developers can change the picture and with a simple app update, you now have the most up-to-date pictures again. A hard copy assessment can't do that.

If a student can't read or doesn't know what a picture is, simply clicking on the picture will give a verbal prompt. This feature can be turned on and off through the settings menu.

The report function of the app is very convenient. I like how it scores the test for you and gives you the results in table and report form.

Like I said above, I think my favorite part of the app (followed closely by the interactive sound tiles) is the speech sample. I used to have to bring in separate pictures to try to elicit a speech sample, and then my students would just name the things or actions in the picture. The interactive picture scenes not only grab my students' attention, but allow for a deeper evaluation of their language skills with the included prompts. I am able to use this speech sample to not only give an intelligibility rating, but analyze a student's MLU, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and articulation skills in conversation.

What features I would like to see:

While I love the speech sample capabilities, I would love to see the ability to give the speech sample in the Screener mode.

As great as this app is, it is not standardized, so a standardized assessment is still needed to determine eligibility. However, this app would be a perfect way to monitor and track progress! In the future, I would love to see this become a standardized assessment.

Overall, this is an innovative, invaluable app that every SLP should have in their toolbox. It provides an in-depth look at a student's articulation and phonological skills in a format that is easy to use and understand for both professionals and parents. The ability to edit or score the test at a later time fits perfectly into a busy SLP's lifestyle, and the ease at which one can monitor student progress with a look at the screen allows for quick and painless IEP progress monitoring. This is the perfect informal assessment for articulation skills!You can find Articulation Test Center on iTunes for $49.99 (at the time of review). But, it gets better! August 12-14, you can get Articulation Test Center and Articulation Station Pro for 30% off during Little Bee Speech's Back to School Sale. You won't want to miss this, it's their biggest sale of the year!Disclaimer: A code for this app was provided for my review. No other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are mine.

Friday, August 1, 2014

It's officially August, and for many that means that the school year will be starting soon! Like it or not, we all need to start getting our next year of therapy ready. So to help you prepare, Teachers Pay Teachers is hosting a HUGE sale!!Jenna over at Speech Room News has made it easy for you guys to figure out what to buy. I'm linking up with her and a whole bunch of other SLP bloggers to show you what's in our carts!

First, let me show you a few things from my store that I'm excited about this year.

I've recently moved to an Early Intervention position that I am oh so excited about! After working with mostly middle schoolers for the past year, I am in need of some new things for my younger clients.

And finally, a product for those of you with a little older clients, Design a Town from Teach Speech 365. You can target expressive and receptive language across a wide variety of ages with this activity! I hope you find something you want during the sale! My store will be 20% off, and with the additional 10% off using code BTS14 during checkout, you'll save a total of 28% on my store!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

I'm back! The creative bug (along with some much needed down time this summer) has hit me and I'm back to making products! I can't promise how often I'll be posting them for the rest of the summer due to limited internet access and moving craziness, but I promise there will be new things coming soon.

My first product since my long hiatus targets phonological awareness with a cute bubblegum theme. In particular, it focuses on rhyming words, both identifying if two words rhyme and producing a rhyming word given a word. I plan on creating a whole series of phonological awareness products around this bubblegum theme, so stay tuned for more!This product aligns with CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2.A: Recognize and produce rhyming words.There are 72 total cards in this product. 36 each for Identifying Rhyming Words and Producing Rhyming Words.

There is an 8 page mini book with included pictures that can be used as a therapy activity or sent home as homework. I have also included a black and white version to save on ink!

A cute Bubblegum SPLAT! board game with optional game pieces can be used with the target cards or by itself.

And finally, there are 3 homework worksheets. Two target identifying two words that rhyme and one targets producing a rhyming word. Activities include matching rhyming words, cut and paste rhyming words, and find/draw rhyming words.

You can find my Bubblegum Phonological Awareness: Rhyming activity here. Be sure to leave some feedback if you download!

Monday, June 23, 2014

I've been asked to make more of my Articulation Jenga products, and I was happy to oblige! So here's my newest edition- L and L Blends.

Just like before, take a standard Jenga game and color the ends of the blocks with red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and purple. Have your student draw a Jenga block. The color they draw corresponds to the position of the sound. The best part is you can target the word, phrase, or sentence level all on the same card! There are 15 cards per color.

Friday, June 6, 2014

I can't believe that it's been a year since I've started this crazy adventure of blogging and making products on Teachers Pay Teachers!! I definitely wouldn't have made it this far without all the love and support from all of YOU!

So to thank you, I've got some fun stuff in store. First, my entire Teachers Pay Teachers store will be on sale from June 6-8. You can find my store here.

Finally, I'm throwing a huge giveaway where you can win my ENTIRE store. Yep, that's right, you can win everything in my store, for free!! Even if you aren't my grand prize winner, you can win awesome products from other bloggers too, there will be 4 winners in all. Here's a breakdown of what you could win:

Once again, I'd like to thank you with all my heart. I'm giving you all a big virtual hug right now. Be sure to check out all the FABULOUS bloggers who donated to my giveaway, I couldn't have done it without them either!

Monday, May 19, 2014

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I LOVE rewarding you for the awesome feedback you leave in my store. This month is no different. In fact, this month I get to pick two winners-yay! I'm linking up with Allison's Speech Peeps to bring you this month's feedback linky.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Oh the dreaded "V" word- Vocabulary! I don't know about you, but whenever I see a vocabulary goal, I shiver a little inside. Why? Because they are usually super vague. For example: [Student] will learn grade level vocabulary words with 80% accuracy over 3 sessions, or, [Student] will give definitions for academic vocabulary with 80% accuracy over 3 sessions. First of all, how are these goals even measurable?! And my next question, and the question I'm sure you're all asking as well, what vocabulary words do I target?? I recently attended a wonderful conference on teaching vocabulary. Unfortunately, the presenter wasn't able to give us a magic list of words to teach. She did, however, point us in a few different directions. One set of words to consider teaching are called "Bell's 12 Powerful Words". These are words that commonly trip up students when they are taking tests and include trace, infer, formulate, support, summarize, contrast, analyze, evaluate, describe, explain, compare, and predict. The presenter also recommended teaching academic vocabulary, or the vocabulary your students are using in their classes. You can use the vocabulary that the teachers are using in their classes if you are able to get the words ahead of time. Or you can come up with your own vocabulary from their subjects. There are a few additional resources that provide examples of academic vocabulary- Vocabulary for the Common Core by Marzano and Simms, Building Academic Vocabulary by Marzano and Pickering, and The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists by Fry and Kress. For our life skills kids or kids with limited vocabulary, we could work on functional vocabulary. These are words that come from the student's environment. Go around the school and find important words, such as caution, flammable, and exit. Bring in words that you find from labels, maps, ads, and recipes. Involve the student and their families when you select the words to make things as functional as possible.The last type of words the presenter recommended to target were essential vocabulary words. These are words that appear frequently in reading materials, on tests, and during conversations, but aren't learned easily without instruction. These are also considered Tier 2 words. [Side note: Tier 2 words are high frequency words that are useful across a variety of domains. Some questions to ask to help identify Tier 2 words include: Is it useful? Is it an important word for people to know? Does it have instructional potential- can it be worked with and taught a number of ways? Will it help students more precisely discuss and explain general concepts?] Some resources that target essential vocabulary words are Vocabulary Cartoons, AbraVocabra, and 504 Absolutely Essential Words. Like I said before, there is no magic list to use to target vocabulary for our students. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't target them though! The presenter recommended picking 10-12 words a month to target. So you have your 10-12 words, but how do you teach them? There are SO many ways to teach vocabulary to our students. Here are a few of my favorites:

Use a guessing game- provide clues and have the student try to guess the meaning.

Personalize it- use the word when talking with a student about himself/herself. They will want to know what it means and they now also have a personal connection to the word, which will help them remember it better.

Go on a treasure hunt- in the dictionary! Give them different things to find in the dictionary- like five adjectives that begin with "a" or ten words that use "pre" as a prefix. Ask them which word doesn't belong out of a set of four and why. Have them explain if they would rather be/do/see ____ or ____ and why. There's endless possibilities here.

Start a vocabulary notebook with all the new vocabulary they are learning.

Use charts and diagrams- like a Venn Diagram or the Frayer Model

Take a picture of students acting out vocabulary words- the more your students are involved, the more likely they will be to remember!

Use vocabulary words to make song titles, act out a skit, give a newscast, etc.

M is for Monkeying around with Vocabulary. I looked and looked and looked to try to find a link for this for you, but it seems that it's out of print! In fact, this copy was left at my school from a previous SLP. So if you run across a copy of either book, be sure to grab it up!There are two versions to this product, a grades K-2 version and a grades 3-5 version. They both include sections on antonyms, synonyms, classifying, definitions, absurdities, and then the 3-5 grade version also includes a section on analogies.These are so much fun for my littles. Each section includes multiple ways to practice the skill: matching pictures, cut and paste, coloring pages, circling words, fill in the blanks, writing sentences, and word banks. With so many different activities to use, my students don't even realize they are working!What's an M from your room that you love?

Sunday, April 27, 2014

L is for Labels! If you don't already know, I'm a bit OCD when it comes to organization. I have ALL of my binders labeled. Each shelf of my cabinets and bookcase are labeled with what type of product is on that shelf. Even my desk drawers are labeled (OK, I admit. That may be taking it too far.) But with so much going on each day, it's important to know where things are at in a moments notice. I definitely couldn't live without my labels!What is an L product you couldn't live without?

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Whew it's been a while since I've posted in my ABC series, time to get back to it!K is for Kleenex. I know, I know, it's not really speech related. But let's be honest, it's a pretty big asset in your speech room too. I think Spring has finally set in (crossing my fingers!), and all this change in the weather has caused all my kiddos to have the dreaded runny nose. The first sniffle and my kids are directed to the tissue box, followed by my Germ-X bottle. There's no need for me to get sick too!What's a K that is a staple in your room? I'd love to hear!

Monday, April 7, 2014

As you might know, I've been rather absent from the blogging/TpT world for a while. I'm so happy that I can finally tell you why- I've got a new job and we are moving!!My husband and I are both from the same hometown, which is almost 3 hours from where we live now. When an opportunity arose back in our hometown, I couldn't pass it up. I will be providing Early Intervention therapy, which is what I've really wanted to do since graduate school!It has been extremely hard saying goodbye to my administration and coworkers, but luckily they all understand why my husband and I are making the move. I'll be finishing out the school year, but starting this summer, I'll officially be an EI interventionist. And I couldn't be more excited :)So now that all the hustle and bustle of applying for jobs and figuring out what is going on with my life is over, I'll be back to blogging and making products for you all! Are any of you EI therapists? Do you have any tips or tricks for me? I'd love to hear them!

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About Me

Hello there! Thanks for stopping by. I'm lucky enough to be employed at a wonderful middle school for my CFY. I graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Illinois. My husband is my rock and my family and friends are two of the most important things in my life. I feel so blessed to have found a profession that I truly love, and I hope that you enjoy this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Feel free to use the downloads, freebies, and ideas found on this blog. Contact me: sharon.schackmann@gmail.com